


Wind me up Like Clockwork

by MONANIK



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Aristocrat Atsumu, Aristocrat Miya Atsumu, Bottom Miya Atsumu, Canonical Character Death, Cyborg Kageyama, Dom Kageyama Tobio, Dom/sub Undertones, Enemies to Lovers, Lipstick & Lip Gloss, Loss of Limbs, M/M, Pining Miya Atsumu, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Sad Miya Atsumu, Sort Of, Steampunk, Temperature Play, Top Kageyama Tobio, Victorian Science Fiction, Watchmaker Kageyama, Worker Kageyama Tobio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:54:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28806897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MONANIK/pseuds/MONANIK
Summary: As he lay splayed out like a fish out of water, back to the muddy cemetery road, blinking up at a pair of blue, so blue, eyes, he realized that his decision to continuously stalk the gloomy figure he’d grown fascinated with wasn’t perhaps his brightest idea thus far.“Who the hell are you?”Atsumu wants to touch the sky, but is weighted by his heritance.Tobio is soaring through the sky, and never quite had a place to land.Together they burn blue.
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Miya Atsumu
Comments: 2
Kudos: 57





	Wind me up Like Clockwork

**Author's Note:**

> WOW was this written on impulse or what?  
> I'd like to clarify that no character death is explicitly stated, or any more dramatic than the canonical one.  
> Other than that, enjoy this poor excuse to write steampunk atsukage porn with a needy atsumu and a corsetted, lipstick bearing Tobio.
> 
> FEAST MY CHILDREN FEAST

_"A clockwork heart can't replace the real thing."_

_― Dru Pagliassotti_

.

.

.

Between the towering tombstones of Veleria’s largest cemetery Atsumu found him.

Through the pouring rain he first could make out the silhouette of him, and upon inching closer he saw the glimmer of metal in the cracks of his clothes, thin and unfit for the harsh weather as they were. In his glum visage he glimpsed something dark, a repressed memory so rotten its growth had overtaken his sharp features, and made him look much older than Atsumu assumed he was.

He wore a white dresshirt, ballooned at the arms and unlaced over his chest, and a low, black corset that shone almost as bright as his prostetics. His long legs were clad in black, plain pants, and a pair of muddy, black boots were neatly tied  to his feet. He looked effortlessly handsome, skin shining with the water running over it, and hair as black as night casting shadows over a pair of beautiful eyes.

Atsumu considered, for a minute, whether he should approach him. Ask him his name, where he’s from, but stopped in his tracks when from the man’s pocket a miniature, clockwork crow flew out and landed on his shoulder. It sounded once then twice, and upon the second mechanical crow the man hummed to himself.

“Yes, yes, I know.. no need to yell..” he mumbled to the clockwork, brushing soaked hair from his forehead, and turned to leave Atsumu in the dark. 

…

Call him foolish, but Atsumu was intrigued. No, more than intrigued, he was _obsessed,_ and when he sunk his claws into something he didn’t let go until it lay torn to shreds at his feet, examined from the inside out. Or so his brother put it.

“You’ll kill yourself one day, with that stubbornness of yours,” he told him one day over dinner, his face a mirrored reflection of Atsumu’s, “And when that day comes—when something else sinks its claws in _you—_ don’t come crying to me for help.”

He didn’t blame his brother for his cruelty, even though he’d loudly and obnoxiously complained at the time, because regardless of the intent his brother had been right. Someday something would sink its claws in him, and when the roles would reverse his whole world would come to a jarring halt.

As he lay splayed out like a fish out of water, back to the muddy cemetery road, blinking up at a pair of blue, so blue, eyes, he realized that his decision to continuously stalk the gloomy figure he’d grown fascinated with wasn’t perhaps his brightest idea thus far.

“Who the hell are you?” The man sat atop his chest growled, eyes a ferocious beacon in the morning-fog around them. If Atsumu looked closely he could see cogs and gears turning and twisting within the blue depths of his left eye. Covering it was a scar, deep and jagged, and long enough to cross the hill of his cheekbone and crawl over the crimson flesh of his upper lip.

He was utterly, devastatingly beautiful. Atsumu could do nothing but stare.

“Answer me!” The handsome stranger snarled, which shook Atsumu to the core. He blinked himself back to reality.

“A-Atsumu Miya of the Miyas, sir!” he stammered. “I mean no harm, I am simply captivated by your very existence! Your beauty is extraordinary!” he shouted, and mustered as much coquetry into his voice as he could. It seemed to do the trick.

The blue-eyed man was taken aback enough to stand up, and allow Atsumu the room and freedom to do the same. He rose, brushing himself off as best he could in the process, and grumbled, disgruntled over the dirt on his clothes and arse. The man just stood there, observing him.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked, a now familiar frown carved into his marbled features. 

Atsumu couldn’t help but smirk. “You’re a delight for sore eyes, is what I mean,” he explained, and watched as the other’s eyes widened in disbelief, “Care to join me for dinner sometime? I’ve been meaning to ask all these weeks, but every time I lost  the courage. That’s why I’ve been watching you for a while now.” 

_Hook, line and sinker_ , he thought as he watched the figurative and literal cogs turn in the man’s head. It always worked, the innocent, flirty act.  _Oh, how I’ve admired you fro_ _m_ _afar,_ he’ll say, and they all come running into his arms, gender be damned. But it seemed the blue-eyed beauty among the tombstones would be the first to surprise him, for he said,

“Sorry, but I don’t know you. Stop following me. I want nothing to do with you. Quite frankly, your behavior is… rather unpleasant.” He adjusted the front of his corset. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he said, and turned to walk away.

“Wait!” Atsumu exclaimed, earning a raised eyebrow from the stoic stranger. “Can I at least have your name? It’s only right. I gave you mine, after all,” he pressed.

The stranger raised both brows, and smirked, “You were under no obligation to do so,” he said, and crossed his arms.

Atsumu gaped.  _I see, so that’s how it’s going to be,_ he thought and straightened his posture. 

“Oh? As I recall it the threat of getting my teeth knocked out was hovering just over my head. Was I expected to be defiant?” he asked. 

“Defiant? No, you’d have had your teeth knocked out if you would,” the stranger affirmed. 

“Then?”

“Then all it means is that you’re simply weak,” the man looked him up and down slowly, asserting all of him, then, “I thought you would be a tougher opponent, but I suppose I was a fool to think someone with shoes as polished as yours would be any better a fighter than a toddler.” 

Atsumu bristled. What offended him most was the nonchalant, uncaring, objective way in which the man had said it. As if Atsumu’s weakness was a matter of observable facts, no more, no less. 

“Oh, yeah?” he said, throwing off his jacket and rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, white and pristine and freshly ironed, “Let’s see if that theory of yours holds any truth, then,” he taunted and clenched his fist in front of him, ready to fight. 

The stranger laughed.

“You’re really strange, Mr. Miya. Maybe some other time, when those bones of your aren’t as brittle as they seem.” As if to punctuate his statement the man rolled up the sleeved of his right arm, and revealed to the morning light the bright sheen of gold-plated metal. His arms appeared to cut off at the wrist, and below that the intricate machinery of the most complex prosthetic blinked right back at Atsumu. He’d seen it that night, a whole moon ago, but he’d only been able to catch a glimpse in the horrid weather. Now, out in the light of day, it all seemed so much more impressive than previously. 

Atsumu allowed his eyes to follow the seam of his sleeve, and up the curves of his body. The man seemed no older than Atsumu himself, and his built wasn’t much different either. A pound or so heavier perhaps, and an inch taller on rough estimate, but that, coupled with the prosthetic of a material far superior to brittle bone was enough to discourage him from any ideas of a brawl. 

He slumped. 

“That makes this awfully unfair, don’t you think?” he asked, not exactly looking for an answer.

Atsumu’s parents were well known throughout Veleria. They were aristocratic at the roots, and owned more land than the king himself, and if Atsumu dared be arrogant would even go as far as to claim the Miyas held more power than the mentioned  monarch . 

As a consequence, the pretty stranger was right. He had no more experience with fighting than the years of living wall-to-wall with an insufferable twin brother, and to top it all of f, they’d been terribly spoiled throughout their lives. 

Put that against  hands of literal steel and Atsumu’s last glimmer of hope quickly faded. It was in moments like these he wished he’d been raised differently. Poorer, even. There was nothing he valued more than strength, the ability to preserver, to go on until the rest of the world was too tired to so much as flinch. As a result, he’d spent most of his teenage years sneaking out at night, seeking fights in bars, at street corners—desperately looking for adventure, for something to challenge him, to make his heart drum in his ears. He was tired of the cage that was his home, and tired of the posers in his circles who were only nice to him because they had to be. 

This man, this stranger, something—everything—about him was exactly the type of adrenaline he’d been looking for. The way he held himself, the way he talked. His scars, his polished limbs, it all pulled him in,  like an endless voi d . Pulled and pulled and lulled him into a false sense of security. Made the drums beat to the rhythm in his chest. 

He wanted to pull at his strings, to open him up and re-caliber the mechanics of his chest. He wanted to know what made him tick. Wanted to push all the buttons he could find. Because if he could just for a second push this entity over the edge, if he could just get close enough to touch, he believed he could map the stars right there, in a single encounter. 

“Aren’t you scared?” the man asked. 

Atsumu looked back, torn from his spiraling thoughts. 

“Scared of what?”

“Scared of me,” the stranger added immediately, not allowing for pause. In the forest behind him, crows cawed. Light was weak so early in the morning. 

“Have I got a reason to fear you?” he asked, not in the least disturbed. On the contrary, he’d never wanted to get closer to a flame than right in that moment. He _wanted_ to get burnt. 

The stranger hummed. “I don’t know. Maybe. Most people do,” he admitted, looking downcast all the sudden. The expression faded as quickly as it’d arrived, and Atsumu had no time to answer before the man turned  his back on him  once more. With the flick of a hand behind him he spoke, “If you’re so goddamn curious, come with me then.”

As his back faded into the fog, and the shadows of the trees reached for him from way ahead, Atsumu glanced one more time towards the  rising  sun. 

His mind made up, he turned back to the stranger’s retreating back and shortened the distance one  steady  step at a time.

…

The streets of Veleria were bustling with early workers going too and fro places, preparing for the workday. A boy in a crooked cap standing poised on a crate at the intersection  was shouting at the top of his lungs. He was  waving newspapers in the faces of the passersbys  rather enthusiastically . Atsumu watched the crow d . Analyzed their robotic movements, their noisy existences. He saw watches and tophats, frills and vests and pristine, white gloves. Very few women were out and about at this time of day, and the few he glimpsed were either clearly poor or a middle-class lady out on errand. 

He tipped his hat graciously at the two ladies by the side of the road who were snickering behind their hands and pointing their way. To his surprise, they didn’t react to his subtle flirt, and he saw instead that their eyes were fixated on his companion, walking leisurely by his side. Suddenly their snickering earned  itself a completely different tone. They were mocking him.

His companion, as he’d settled on calling the stranger by his side, seemed a lot more feminine in his beauty when presented to the sunlight. His skin, unblemished aside from the scar, was soft and gently flushed a healthy pink on the apples of his cheeks. His eyelashes were long, and his nose high and slim. His lips were soft and so red he was starting to think the man was  wearing lipstick as red as the apples decorating Atsumu’s dinner table. 

Yet despite all this, he was still taller, and just a little heavier, and quite obviously a man. Atsumu  felt the temperature in his veins rise to dangerous levels. He was on the verge of turning and giving the snickering snakes a piece of his mind when a metallic hand grabbed a firm hold of his wrist, tugging him back to his companion’s side. 

“Don’t. It’s fruitless.”

“But—!”

“Forget it!” he snapped, then righted his features immediately, as if he was scared Atsumu would scamper away at the mere sight. “I don’t care what they think, I am what I am. I understand my queerness, and I see why it would be laughable in their eyes. I’ve come to terms with it.” 

Atsumu opened his mouth to retort, but just then the little clockwork crow in his companion’s pocket decided to come to life and once again land on its master’s shoulder. It cawed gentl y that mechanical noise again, and his companion sighed. 

“Christ, already?” he sighed, mumbling to himself, “At this rate I’ll be late…”

Suddenly, he stopped. 

“Mr. Miya—“

“Please, just Atsumu is fine.”

“Then, Atsumu, would you mind if I picked you up?”

He blinked.

“Excuse me?” 

His companion placed the mechanical crow in his pocket.

“I asked if it would b—“

“Yeah, I heard you loud and clear! Why on earth would y—“

“We don’t have time for this. Excuse me,” he interrupted, and in a swoop picked Atsumu right off his feet, dashed for the nearest building, and with his free hands grabbed for the cracks in the building bricks. One step at a time, with a full grown man screaming his lungs off slung over one shoulder and clutching to his waist for dear life, he ascended the building effortlessly. The onlookers below had all stopped what they were doing, gazing at the spectacle, and once him and his companion were far enough away to not be seen, Atsumu squirmed his way off the man’s shoulder. 

“What! On Earth! Is wrong! With you!” he yelled between agitated breaths. His ears and neck were burning. “You could have dropped me! No, scratch that, _how did you not drop me!?_ What the fuck are you!?” 

His companion seemed only very confused by his outburst, almost scandalized, as if  _Atsumu_ had been the one to completely embarrass  _him._

“Someone’s gonna call the cops!”

“No one will be calling anyone. These people all know me. Surely they’re used to me by now.”

Atsumu could only stand there, breathing heavily, looking as disheveled as he felt. He adjusted his shirt and gently cleared his throat, brushing hair out of his forehead. He’d lost his hat in the ordeal. 

“They know you?” he asked.

“Yes. I make clockwork and complex machinery for in-city flying and competitive racing. I’m known around town for my inventions. No one will think of it any more than any of my other experiments or performances.” 

It was more than he’d uttered since Atsumu had first met him,  and yet he understood him even less, if possible.

“What the hell is your name?” he asked.

The man squirmed for a second, then sighed.

“Kageyama. Kageyama Tobio. I’m a mechanic and a watchmaker. I work for the King, and the people.” 

Atsumu gaped. 

“ _The_ Kageyama? The guy who broke flight record four years ago with a scrapped zeppelin? That was _you?”_ He asked, suddenly brought back to sleepless nights spent reading every article, every piece of information about zeppelins and the man who’d mastered them at just 19 years old, that he could find. 

To think he’d come face to face with the person who single-handedly held in the palms of his hands the one thing Atsumu had ever wanted and yet never gotten. Freedom.

…

_ I t was unlike anything the world had ever seen before. “Record breaking flight across the Atlantic” the article said in big, bold, black text. Underneath was a blurry picture of a man standing in front of a comparatively small zeppelin that looked like I t ’d long ago lived its last flight.  _

_ And yet it wasn’t dead. The strange, lumpy, stitched-together machinery worked as it should. Better, even. It had taken a man across the Atlantic on record time. It had written history. No,  _ he  _ had written history. Whoever he was; that blurry shadow in front of his aircraft.  _

_ He knew, in that moment,  _ that  _ was what he wanted. To shoot across the sky like a star. To speed through life and seas, to watch humanity bustle below his feet, further in the sky than any building could reach. To be untouchable. To be free.  _

_ He asked his mother the next day if they could get him one. A big one, one that could take him across the Atlantic ocean. He was instantly shut down. Told he had duty to uphold, a life to establish, and that he was running out of time. _

“ _You’re_ _22_ _already!” His mother had shouted, “How dare you come to me with such absurd demands?”_

“ _Have you got no pride?” His father had asked between gritted teeth._

“ _None, sir,” he’d replied, choking back tears. Clenching his shaking fists harder._

“ _You’re crazy to think a voyage like that wouldn’t cost you your life,” his brother had whispered that night to his quivering silhouette._

_ And so he abandoned it. He took those dreams, set them aflame, and made himself find joy in the meaningless duties of being a rich man’s son.  _

_ But within him, deep within from behind rows of ribs, his heart kept on drumming  to the beat of a crackling fire .  _

…

A silence had stretched between them. Atsumu looked into Tobio’s—yes,  _he had a name now—_ into Tobio’s eyes. 

“How did you do that? Am I not heavy? I imagine scaling a building is difficult enough as it is even without a full grown man flopping around in your arms…” He warmed at the memory of his behavior. 

Tobio let out an amused breath. “Not at all. Not when your finger s are of steel and you’ve no nails to worry about breaking. Very little of what I just did is about strength, although I won’t deny some is required,” he looked down at his hand, turned and twisted it, clenched and unclenched his fist, “But most of it is technique. Momentum of speed and the aid of a pair of sturdy tools.”

“Oh, well,” he added, “Let’s get going, shall we?” He asked, and started walking again, briskly this time. Atsumu had to jog a little to catch up with him.

“Where to? Why are we in a rush? Was it really quicker to _climb a building_ than to just, I don’t know, _run?_ ” He started bombarding Tobio with questions. “You know, like _normal people?”_

Tobio smirked. “I thought we’d established that I am, in fact, not what you would call ‘normal’,” he said, pointedly, and opened a hatch in the roof. He stepped aside, waiting for Atsumu to go first.

“Uh, where… to…?” he tried again.

“My job,” Tobio simply replied, “I’ve got customer’s waiting for me. Unfortunately, he cannot walk, so he prefers I visit him in person for his checkups, which usually means taking the elevator, and I simply did not have time for that. This way’s quicker.” 

He motioned again towards the open hatch, rather impatiently. 

Atsumu sighed, and stepped down onto the latter, slowly descending into the hallway of the top floor of the building. 

He’d never been in a building cheaper than a  palace , so to see the frayed carpet and the chipped wallpaper was truly a surprise, to put it lightly. He flinched when he caught sight of a cockroach crawling up the wall to his right. 

Tobio came down after, and once dusted-off and presentable again turned towards one of the practically _decaying_ doors of the establishment and gave it three firm knocks. 

“Hinata?” he yelled through the door, “It’s me.” 

A muffled affirmation faintly reach Atsumu’s ears through the door. Tobio opened and stepped inside, Atsumu in tow.

Inside, sitting on the single bed by the window, was a young man. As they approached,  Atsumu noticed the man’s legs were cut off at the knees, and on the bed beside him were a pair of prosthetic legs.

“What took you so damn long?” the man asked, pouting like a child.

Tobio scolded him rather unprofessionally in return. It was a behavior he hadn’t seen him exhibit  yet . It was strange, and yet exhilarating to see another shade of the colors of Kageyama Tobio.

Atsumu thought  the man he assumed was Hinata seemed interesting at best and like a spectacle at worst. His hair was a bright red, and his proportions that of a child. He had the most expressive eyes Atsumu had ever seen on a human being, and above all else he seemed… poor. 

Tobio introduced the wild little thing as Hinata Shoyou, and Hinata in turn was introduced to Atsumu. They shook hands cordially before Hinata’s attention dropped back to the man at his feet, adjusting his prosthetics. It took Tobio no longer than half an hour to re-caliber the mechanical legs, and once they were back in place again the ginger immediately flew up, bouncing in place, and Atsumu noted that he was really,  really short. 

Short and as energetic and full of spring in each step.

...

“You two seemed close...” 

Atsumu was sitting atop Tobio’s workbench, idly swinging his legs back and forth as he observed the mechanic in his natural habitat: his  workshop . 

Around them were piles upon piles of objects. Clockworks that ticked, moved, squirmed or danced across the mess, toolboxes and cartons full to breaking point with various things. Chunks of metal, stapled rods, complex machinery Atsumu couldn’t even begin to describe. Different workstations for different endeavors. All of it was a jumbled mess of materials, and yet there was a certain order to it he couldn’t quite place. Something about it was organized, thought out, and as he watched his companion work he understood why that was. It was simply how he worked. Tobio knew exactly where everything was. All of it was placed within logical reach so that he may pick it in correct order, without stumbling or searching.

“Who? Me and Hinata?” Tobio asked, glancing up at Atsumu from his position at the hood of something that looked suspiciously much like a vehicle, but which Atsumu assumed wasn’t _just_ a vehicle. 

Tobio closed the hood with a finality and a hard  _bang._

“ _Yes.”_

“Well, not really. I don’t know what we are. Sometimes he helps me out at the shop. Mostly he’s just a nuisance.” 

Atsumu watched him reorganize the tools in their box as he put away his things.  Evening had arrived fast. He’d spent the whole day at the shop, with Tobio, and had no doubt in mind his parents would start to wonder soon where he’d gone. Osamu would proclaim him dead in the blink of an eye, probably. Maybe even stage his death.

“I don’t know,” he said, breathing deeply, “Seemed like you were pretty close to me. I mean, you did all that for him off charge, did you not? Didn’t know you were such a _hero,_ Tobio~” he hummed, purposefully looking to rile him up.

Tobio’s shoulders tensed.

“Nothing about that was heroic, Miya,” he spat, “Don’t be foolish. What the hell do you know, anyway? Stop prying, it’s none of your business,” he snapped. 

_Looks like_ _he_ _had stepped on a wounded tail._

“I meant no offense, Tobio,” he cooed, twirling a screwdriver slowly between two fingers as he watched from below hooded eyes Tobio’s every reaction.

His fists were clenched at his sides.

“Is it empathy? Remorse? Revenge?” he started asking, prying and prying. Hoping it would reach a boiling point, _hoping_ for the reaction he was looking for. He knew he was being careless. He knew it, and yet he kept poking and poking, hoping to blow the fire he’d glimpsed within him to life.

“...love?” he finally added, and that seemed to be the breaking point.

Tobio turned, sharply, and in three long strides crowded Atsumu on the workbench where he sat, tall and steady he stood between his legs, with both arms on either side of Atsumu’s head, firmly slammed against the wall that had cracked and chipped under his strength.

Atsumu swallowed, but for all the wrong reasons. Feeling parched all of a sudden.

“When I was a boy,” Tobio started, voice low and venomous, lips stretched into a snarl. Eyes a steely, cold, blue flame. “When I was a boy, I stole a loaf of bread. I was hungry, lost, abandoned. I had no money, or means to earn it. So I stole it. I ran, of course, but they caught me,” Tobio inched closer, and Atsumu gulped, praying to whatever God could hear him that his companion wouldn’t notice the obvious problem down south.

Tobio continued. “On an empty stomach  I watched them cut off both my hands.”

Atsumu stared, and in an instant the fire was distinguished. Tobio’s eyes had lost their edge. Instead, they were glossed over with unshead tears.

“My hands were all I had. They were my ticket into clockwork. I was hoping to get a job at one of the shops in my town, but when word spread that I was not only a thief, but a useless crippled at that, any doors shut for good.” 

Tobio was shaking now. It wasn’t immediately evident, but it was there. The line of his shoulders shook ever so slightly, and his bottom lip quivered gently. His voice, too, had lost  all stead i ness.

“I thought I would die in the streets. Left on the side of the road like roadkill to rot in the sun. But I was saved,” he leaned back, and Atsumu took a conscious breath for the first time in a while. His ears were ringing, and he could feel that familiar burn of unshed tears in his throat.

“I was saved, because he found me,” he continued. Something in Atsumu told him they weren’t talking about Hinata anymore. Tobio went on, “—and he gave me these.” He brought both hands towards Atsumu, still clenched in fists.

Atsumu  hesitated, looking from the prosthetics to the wearer, wary, and only when Tobio nodded in affirmation did he dare reach out his hands, and trace the pattern of the machinery underneath his fingertips. 

It was a little cool to the touch, and the bolts and nuts and seams all formed the most beautifully intricate pattern Atsumu had ever seen.  It was attached to his arm completely. Not just as an accessory, no. Fully  _attached._ Sown into the skin and merged with the flesh. They would never come off.

_ Atsumu remembered a festered sorrow on the face of a man in the rain. He remembered a mossy graveyard and muddy boots. _

“I take it he’s no longer with us…” he whispered into the space between them. Tobio had stopped shaking.

“No.” 

“And now you’re carrying on his legacy…” he added as an afterthought. 

Tobio nodded slowly, then unfurled one hand to gently grasp Atsumu’s. Soon he did the same with the other, until he was holding both of Atsumu’s hands in his, gently. He turned them this and that way, seemingly counted each finger, traced each protruding bone and sinew. Examined them with such care it almost made his heart skip a beat.

“You’re good at it,” he said, not baring the silences.

Tobio stopped his movements and looked up at him.

“I know,” he said.

Atsumu chuckled. “What I mean isn’t so shallow as  _you’re skilled in your craft,”_ he clarified to a Tobio who was growing more confused by the minute. 

He took a deep breath. “I mean that you have something no ordinary talent can give a craftsman. You have heart, Tobio. I mistook it for complicity, maybe even  naivety , but I see now that it’s simply a different fire to the one I imagined. You do what you do with heart, because you believe in what you do, and why you do it, and,” he paused, looking down at Tobio’s hands, “For  _who_ you do it.”

He bit his lower lip, hesitant all of a sudden. _Why did it all feel like a confession?_ _Perhaps because it was._ _He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this genuine with someone other than Osamu..._

“You touched Hinata. Gave him something he thought at some point that he’d never have again, and you touched me, too. A long time ago. Way before I saw you at the cemetery,” Tobio quirked an eyebrow and stepped closer when Atsumu didn’t elaborate further. Heat crept up his spine. Tobio smelled like cedar wood and gunpowder and adrenaline and what Atsumu imagined stardust smelled like. 

“I did?” he asked, dragging out every syllable, inching closer by the second and gazing down at Atsumu through lidded eyes, “How?” he continued, one of his hands now sliding up Atsumu’s thigh.

The setting sunlight cast a glory of red and pink around Tobio’s head, and doused him in all the colors of the sunset. His eyes remained fixated on Atsumu. 

He couldn’t breathe again.

“W-when your voyage across the Atlantic was published in the newspaper. I was younger, back then, and the picture was horrible so it’s not like I immediately recognized you earlier, but I’ve kinda been a little obsessed since then,” he stopped to take a deep breath, and decided he would start living _right that instant_ _._

“You may see yourself as unfortunate, but to me you’re extraordinary. You did something, Tobio. You took that disadvantage and you mauled it into the Earth, and you did something incredible. You lit a flame in me that I have been protecting with my life ever since,” he swallowed, staring intently at a pair of crimson lips inching ever closer.

“Is that so, Atsumu?” he breathed against his lips, the ghost of something in his words that Atsumu couldn’t quite place, and then pressed his lips against Atsumu’s.

In that crimson room, with his lips pressed to crimson lips, and his eyes set on cool, blue flames, Atsumu swore he found hope. 

The serenity of it, the touch of his soft lips against Atsumu’s, the slide of their tongues against lips and teeth  and all else involving the mouth , lasted no longer than a minute. In a haste they started stripping each other.  Tobio’s lipstick had smudged.

Atsumu attacked the intricate lacing of Tobio’s corset, Tobio pulled harshly at the neck of his shirt until three buttons popped off and allowed enough exposure for Tobio’s lips to travel down his neck to his collarbones. 

He gasped at the first touch of a hot, hot tongue against his sensitive skin, and almost forgot what he’d been in the process of doing. His hands shook where they were desperately trying to unlace the man of his dreams.

Tobio laughed breath il y into his neck,  sounding as disheveled as Atsumu felt, and leaned back to expertly and smoothly loosen his corset. He made a show of opening it, and letting it fall to the floor behind him, and when Atsumu reached out to undo the buttons of his shirt, Tobio pushed him back harshly until his back slammed into the wall behind. 

H eat crept up his chest as he watched Tobio slowly, tortuously slowly, unbutton his shirt and pull it open across broad shoulders and a carved, perfect torso. Atsumu gently scraped his nails down the ridges of his abdominal s and Tobio exhaled shakily in response. He grabbed Atsumu behind the knees and pulled him closer to him—pressed him against his chest, and when Atsumu’s shirt, too, was finally off, the cool tickle of cold metal drew patterns across his exposed skin  like droplets of water as Tobio kissed and sucked and bit his way down his body. 

At the happy trail that disappeared under the hem of his jeans Tobio paused long enough to look up and into Atsumu’s eyes, and in a slow, punctuated motion pulled his fly down inch by inch with the help of nothing but his mouth. There was now a prominent tent over Atsumu’s groin, and when his dick was finally freed by Tobio’s cold, metallic touch he gasped at the temperature shock. It didn’t take long until Tobio had shed him of his pants, too, and when he vanished for a moment to retrieved the necessary lubricant Atsumu sat in his own heat, quietly simmering underneath the surface, and thought he would die.

_ So this was what Osamu had meant,  _ he thought, and smiled at Tobio when he returned.

“Are you certain you want this?” Tobio asked, and Atsumu almost laughed at his formality given the situation, and the very prominent erection currently twitching and leaking between them.

Atsumu let his eyes roam the sharp pinch of Tobio’s waist, allowed them to track the width of his shoulders and the light sheen of sweat on his pectorals. Hungrily gazed at the pink buds he so desperately wanted between his lips, or pressed against his naked chest.

“I’d be a mad man to turn away _this,”_ he answered, pointedly stroking searing hot palms up and down Tobio’s sides. The man sighed, whether it was in contentment or disapproval Atsumu couldn’t tell, but judging by the bulge in his pants he assumed the former.

“And you want me just as badly, don’t pretend you do not,” he whispered, losing his voice to pleasure when Tobio’s hands just barely grazed the inside of his thighs. But they didn’t touch him. No, instead they crawled over his ass, gave it a gentle squeeze, and then scooped him up from underneath his thighs. Atsumu yelped and grabbed a hold of his neck as he was raised in the air and spun around. 

Tobio was smiling.

“You’re lighter than you look,” he said, eyes on Atsumu’s lips, as he lowered him on the hood of the vehicle he’d been working on. It was still a little warm from the blowtorch he’d used, and Atsumu shivered at the stark contrast of cold versus hot metal. 

“I think tomorrow I’ll wake up in my bed and you’ll be— _ah_ , gone,” he gasped, trying to get the words out as Tobio’s cold, hard fingers traced his entrance slowly, slick and lubed-up, “And so I— _AH, yes!”_ he trailed off when Tobio’s finger breached him, and slid in up to the knuckle. God, he’d never wanted anyone so bad before in his life, and his body showed it.

“And you…?” Tobio urged on, his other hand curling softly around Atsumu’s wrist as he pinched and poked and played with Tobio’s nipples. He bit his lip, and Atsumu was torn between talking, moaning and making a mess of the man before him. 

“And, _ah,_ I want you to mark me, _AH, there, fuck! There!”_

Tobio had located his prostate, and was abusing it insistently. Atsumu’s thighs shook with pleasure.

“Yeah?” Tobio breathed into his ears, voice a hot breath that shot pleasure through Atsumu’s every nerve all the way down to his toes, curled as they were behind Tobio’s back, ankles crossed. His hand had scrambled up to Tobio’s shoulder so that he may hold on to reality in the only way he could. He felt himself slipping further and further into something he could neither name nor see. All he knew was that once he was there, words would be out of the equation.

“I wanna k-know, _ah,_ that you and I, that this happened, _ahhh…”_

A fourth finger had accompanied the others, and Atsumu gently cursed under his breath when it just wasn’t enough. 

“Fuck me…” he whispered, hoarsely, and let go off Tobio’s shoulder to slump against the hood of the vehicle below him. 

Tobio extracted his fingers long enough to lube up his throbbing cock, and Atsumu stared at the trail of dark hair at the base. At the dripping head. At the veins and the way it curved gently upwards. He hazily watched as Tobio lined up with his entrance, and in one smooth move slid into him.

The bliss was instant.

“ _Ah, ah! T-Tobio, yes! More!”_ he gasped.

If he were fully there he’d be beyond embarrassed at himself, but all the embarrassment he could muster came in the form of heavy tears and heated ears. 

The drumming in his ears intensified. 

“ _Atsumu… Atsumu…”_

Tobio sung his name like a mantra, a tether to reality, and held him just as closely, just as tightly. Atsumu’s whole core felt ready to erupt. He was burning up from the inside and it was all because of Tobio.

The vehicle beneath him shook and groaned in rhythm to Tobio’s brutal thrusts, and Atsumu clawed desperately at Tobio’s chest to get him to lean down. Reaching for him even deep within subspace. 

“Atsumu… _you’re so cute, Atsumu…”_ he rasped and leaned down, leaving a trail of kisses along Atsumu’s chest and neck. He bit down at the juncture, and Atsumu saw stars. 

“ _AH! Tobio! Ah, ah, ah!_ _Fuck!!_ _I—I’m close, Tobio!”_ he wailed, arms an unbreakable chain around Tobio’s neck. 

He kissed him, then, and Atsumu’s view was distorted by the bluest eyes made purple in the setting sun  for just a second before they closed . The drumming in his ears, in his chest, reached a crescendo, and when the universe erupted behind his eyelids he held him just a little tighter.

How much higher can you get than  beyond the  exosphere ?

.

.

.

They say blue flames are deceitful, for they’re the hottest of all, and this blue flame Atsumu wanted a part of. He wanted to steal it. He wanted it all for himself.

In his chest, he would lock it up; to keep him warm, to keep him burning forever. 

.

.

.

_ What’s it like to have the world on a string? _

_ Knowing you can change it, but don’t do a thing? _

_ Who are you when no one sees? _

_ It’s awfully convenient that the devils in your details are the dirty _

_ little reasons in me. _

_ Sick of that shit, _

_ I don’t wanna fall asleep like this. _

_ Come plant a kiss on my lips. _

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked that, follow me on Twitter @monanik2 for more horny content.  
> If you /really/ liked that, I have a ko-fi and would appreciate a tip if you have a penny to spare!  
> ko-fi: ko-fi.com/monanik
> 
> I do commissions! Primarily art ones but we can discuss pricing for a fic one if anyone would be interested.
> 
> Anyways,  
> Thank you so much for reading!  
> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Cheers


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